“Benaiah?”

The man nodded.

“And you are from the south?”

“Kabzeel.”

“The far south, then.”

“Near Edom.”

David frowned at that. “I have unpleasant memories of people from Edom.”

“As do I. I fought in many skirmishes along the southern border. A border that has steadily been pushed back.”

“You fought in the king’s army?”

“When he deemed we should fight. He has been obsessed with you for some time now.”

“Regrettable for both Israel and myself, I would say.”

“Indeed.”

“And why do you seek to join me?”

“I was told to.”

“By who?”

“Yahweh spoke to me through a dream.”

David raised an eyebrow. He immediately thought of Ira, saw his pale face fading as he watched. “Is that so? Did he say why?”

“You are to be king. He said that you needed a bodyguard.”

Abishai snorted a laugh behind him.

“As I’ve heard, on both accounts,” David said. “But we shall see.” He nodded toward Abishai. “Go with Abishai. He will find you a place to call your own.”

Benaiah nodded and lifted his pack. 

“Come,” Abishai said. “We’ll find you some rock to lie under.”

David watched the two of them disappear down one of the many tunnels. He stood in the main cave he had discovered his first day in the caves, though now dozens of people filled the space. It felt significantly smaller than when he had wandered in here two years ago.

“That makes near four hundred.”

David turned to find Eleazar standing beside him with a strip of leather and a scribe’s pen. He sketched a few marks on the leather and then looked up at David. Eleazar had come shortly after Abishai, along with nearly a hundred of David’s soldiers. In the two years they’d spent hiding in the caves, Eleazar had become indispensable.

“That is a lot of men,” David said.

He looked about the opening. The men within it were only a fraction of the band that had gathered around David. Most had come out of desperation, suffering from crushing debt or some other kind of distress. Some were thieves who had come begging for forgiveness. Abiathar had seen to their atonement, and the men had been trained in the way of war. Others still had come simply because of their discontent with the king. From what his scouts and spies were reporting, Saul was so fixated on finding David that Israel's borders had shrunk over the last two years, falling to the Philistines or Amalekites or—as Benaiah had witnessed—to the Edomites.

“They will keep coming,” Eleazar said. “So long as Israel continues to disintegrate, the men will search for a new leader.”

David still did not like the idea that he was to be king, yet the men would not let go of it. “In time, Eleazar.”

“And how much longer do we hide in caves?”

A fair question. One that I do not have an answer to. “I—”

“David!”

They turned in unison as Abishai came charging back in.

“Abishai?” David stepped toward him. “You were gone for two minutes. Why are—”

“Jonathan has come again,” he said, gasping for breath. “He is…he is on the surface.”

Outside, the familiar desert stretched beyond sight, the sand fading into the horizon. Now, however, there were men camped in front of several of the cave openings. There were perhaps a dozen small camps, all neatly hidden among the rocks and hills. Most of the men were camped inside the cliff in caves like the one David was just in.

They found Jonathan sitting on a small boulder. He was holding a hand out, palm up, and his horse was gladly eating whatever he held. He turned when he heard them step out into the desert. 

“Greetings, David,” he said, lowering his head in a short bow.

“You need not bow, old friend,” he said, joining him on the boulder. “I’m no king.”

Jonathan smiled. “Yet.”

“Yet,” he repeated with a sigh. Or ever. “What news do you bring?”

Jonathan looked down into the cave behind him. “There are two things. Which would you hear first?”

“Is there any good news?”

His friend thought for a moment and then shook his head.

“Then, does it matter?”

“I suppose not.” He cleared his throat. “I have found Michal.”

That gave David pause. “And?”

“She is married.”

To his surprise, he felt only mild disappointment at that. Mixed with that was a surprising feeling of relief. He had tried to love her, had spent the better part of six months as her husband, albeit most of it in his bed healing. For the most part, he had succeeded, though he always knew she could only ever have half his heart. 

David put her from his mind. “I suppose we both knew that was coming. What other news do you bring?”

“It appears my father has found you.”

“Found us?”

“Well, Doeg has. One of his scouts, at least. He is on his way now to report your position.”

“How much time do we have?”

“That depends on how many men my father wants to bring. He’ll know you’ve gathered a small force about you. He may simply take the main army from Gibeah and march as soon as he can.”

“Then we must leave with haste.”

Jonathan only nodded.

“There is your answer.” David turned to Eleazar. “It appears we are done hiding in caves.”

* * *

He looked around the room—if the hole they were gathered in could be called that—and at the leaders of his small band. Abishai slouched comfortably, as always. Eleazar stood by the only entrance, body stiff and hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Abiathar was between them, sitting on a small boulder and eyeing David. Even though he was the only non-warrior among them, he was at ease and sat with a sense of belonging. David couldn’t help but smile; Abiathar was becoming more and more the man his father had been.

David began. “Jonathan tells me his father will be here soon, likely by week’s end. It appears we must find a new home.”

Abishai chuckled. “I’ll surely miss my stone bed.”

Eleazar cracked a small smile.

“As will we all,” David said, “but, we need somewhere new to live.”

“Were you thinking somewhere public?” Abiathar asked.

“I would not announce myself with heralds, but somewhere public enough. Saul will follow whatever trail we leave, so I think a confrontation is not far off. I’ll not fight him, but I fear there will be a lot more running in our future. I wouldn’t mind gaining more skilled fighters around me, and yet I would be secluded enough to avoid facing his full army if I could.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I don’t know.” 

“We can move toward the river,” Abishai said. “Make camp on the Jordan.”

Eleazar frowned. “We would be trapped were the army to come.”

“What if we had boats?”

“Boats enough for four hundred? And we grow by the day.”

“Eleazar is right,” David said. “If we were properly equipped, the river would indeed provide an easy escape. But without boats, it is a trap in the making.”

“En Gedi,” Eleazar said. “There is an oasis there among the desert, and the hill country is hard to navigate. There are more caves and ancient strongholds there, as well.”

“I have had enough of cave life,” Abishai said. “I wouldn’t mind something green.”

“And I wouldn’t mind a real bed and a real roof, but that is unlikely to come anytime soon.”

Abishai chuckled at that. “True enough.”

“Supplies have been difficult these last two years,” David said. “And we are perhaps too secluded. We might be able to grow our numbers more if we were closer to a city. I would avoid more caves if I could.”

“The forests of Hereth,” Abiathar suggested. 

David thought on that for a moment. “It is dense, difficult for an army to navigate. We will have access to supplies, food.”

“It is not far from several cities,” Eleazar added. “Keilah is nearby, as is Hebron.”

“I could sleep in a field,” Abishai said with a smile. “Or up in a tree.”

David chuckled at the thought of Abishai sleeping in a tree. “Then we are settled? The forests of Hereth?”

Everyone nodded or voiced their agreement.

“Very well. To Hereth, it is.”

* * *

The forest came into view as David crested the hill, more green than he had seen in over two years. He smiled at the sight, if a slight upturn at the edge of his mouth could be called a smile. It had been a long time since he had smiled in earnest.

“We are to camp in there?”

David looked at Benaiah, who had joined him atop the hill. Behind them were the rest of the men, the ones who had been chosen to travel with him. He had split his band into several smaller groups—three hundred and ninety men, according to Eleazar, divided into three groups of one hundred and thirty. Over four days, with Abishai and his scouts leaving first, the groups moved from the caves to the forest. David, leading the final group, was seeing the forest of Hereth for the first time.

“Abishai will have made camp inside. He and Eleazar.”

Benaiah nodded and gave a grunt, then they were all walking down the hill and into the forest. While the shade of the forest was welcome and expected, the smells caught David off guard. After living in caves and desert for two years, the scents of grass and flowers and animals brought an unexpected longing for the sheep and fields of his youth.

David shrugged away the memory—indeed, if David were to follow Yahweh’s direction, he would never be a shepherd again—and led the men forward. They traveled with no precise direction, making their way through the forest while waiting to hear from Abishai’s scouts or even Abishai himself. 

A shrill whistle pierced the air, and every man spun toward the sound, weapons in the hands of those who had one. David had Goliath’s sword out as he faced the noise, the weight of it now comfortable in his hands. At first, training with such a heavy weapon had become burdensome and impractical, and he’d planned on replacing it at soon as possible. But as more men joined him, and more men marveled at the enormous sword of Goliath, David had decided to keep it as his own and had trained with it every day for two years now. As a result, he had begun to master the two-handed grip required for the blade.

David returned the whistle, letting the pitch drop, and then Abishai was climbing down from a nearby tree. The scrape of swords being sheathed filled the forest as the men embraced.

“You have found a camp?”

Abishai smiled. “Of course.”

As he led them through the forest, they passed by more of Abishai’s scouts. Some were skinning a recently killed animal; others collected water from a brook. A few were walking in the opposite direction.

“Where are they going?” David asked.

Abishai glanced at one of his scouts. “Keilah. You wanted it known you are here. They are doing it.”

“Carefully, of course.”

He grinned. “Of course. They probed the town first, got a feel for how people felt about Saul.”

Benaiah gave a grunt beside them.

David ignored it. “And?”

“They are discontent, as is most of Israel. A king cannot lead while obsessed with his replacement.”

David sighed. He felt responsible. Perhaps if he hadn’tbeen chosen as the new king—a thought that still seemed impossible to him—then Saul would be more focused, more kingly. But inside, he knew the truth. He had been chosen precisely because of Saul’s failures.

They stepped into a small clearing, no more than two dozen cubits wide. Eleazar stood in the center with his leather parchment in hand. Abiathar was with him, along with a dozen or so men. Fire heated a small clay kiln n the eastern edge, men feeding small branches and twigs into it. Not far from it was another fire with a cooking spit. Two large goats—or rather, what was left of them—were roasting on the spit.

“A nice beginning,” he said, eyeing the camp. “Where are the others?”

Eleazar stepped forward. “They are spread throughout the forest. Some have chosen to make their homes in trees. Others have pitched small tents.”

David almost smiled again. He was doing a lot of that today. “All are comfortable?”

“More so than a few days ago, I would say. We have a freshwater spring nearby, a brook even closer.” A pair of Abishai’s scouts entered the clearing, six rabbits hanging on a pole between them. “As you can see, meat is plentiful. We have the makings of a small garden. All within a league of here.”

David turned to the men behind him. “Find yourselves a home,” he said. “Report its location to Eleazar before nightfall.” He gestured to the cooking goats. “And get some food.”